Pestology Blog
Valkyries, Vermin, and Pest Research
Fairfax, VA – March 1, 2026
In this month's episode, the team breaks down recent research on best methods for tick surveillance, how invasive spotted lanternfly honeydew influences native food webs, and new evidence showing how wild house mice are incredible problem-solvers. We're joined by special guest Susie Raynor with Valkyrie Pest Solutions based in Gimli, Manitoba who shares her journey running a women-led pest control business, the challenges of operating in extreme climates, and her empathetic approach to serving vulnerable clients.
Featured Article Summaries
Tick Collecting
Traps Baited with Dry Ice Outperform Cloth Drags for Capturing Ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in 3 Widely Separated Geographic Regions
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to collect 25 thousand ticks? Well wonder no longer! The researchers with Banfield bio did it so you don’t have to. But how does one collect ticks most effectively? And why?
The “why” of this is what we already knew. We collect ticks from areas to figure out how many are present. By taking samples, we can get an idea of what areas have ticks, and which areas may have more or less. Ticks can vector a wide variety of diseases so we need to understand where those diseases are prevalent to be able to warn our communities to take proper protection measures and know what symptoms of diseases to look out for.
The “how” is the question researchers were asking in this project. What is the best way to collect ticks?
One of the most common methods for surveying and collecting ticks is the tick drag. The tick drag method uses a light colored cloth that is dragged over vegetation to snag questing ticks. This is the only method approved by the CDC for all their observation types (
There are a handful of other methods as well including one effective method that involves putting dry ice on a white cloth on the ground and letting the ticks get lured in. Older papers have show that this dry ice method is effective, but until 2022 there was not a well-designed easy to use version.
The trap they used was kind of like one of those dog bowls that doesn’t tip over and it has a sticky card placed on top and then the dry ice in a Styrofoam takeout container sitting on top of it all. The idea is that the ticks detect the dry ice, head towards it and up the side of the base and then get stuck on the sticky trap as they try to get closer to the dry ice. Why would a tick care about dry ice? Because they are attracted to CO2 which is what animals breathe out, and as dry ice evaporates, it emits CO2 so you basically have a tick magnet.
This study used several plots of land across Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Texas for their observations. They counted the numbers of adults, nymphs, and larvae of each tick species collected via the dry ice trapping method and the tick drag method at different locations in each state. They used each method in each general area to compare them.
Of all the ticks collected across the entire experiment, 84% were collected via the dry ice trapping and 16% were from the tick drags. This means that they got about 5 times more ticks via trapping than dragging. They also took into account the man hours of effort that went into these methods. It turned out that the trapping took longer because of multiple visits but they estimate that with operational efficiency of a commercial product and the logistics of a scientific team taken out of the equation, these methods could probably end up being similar in man hours. The logistical difficulties of dry ice could also be ameliorated by potentially designing a device that emits CO2 differently. But that would be another test.
The trapping collected many more ticks because it drew them in as opposed to the random encounter that the drag relies on. Counts and collection ids are more reliable when taken back to a lab than an in person count may be. While it is important to compare apples to apples and keep sampling methods the same, it may be time to move to this new technique which could allow for better detection of ticks at lower densities. Lower tick densities such as emerging invasive species, are critical to detect. We don’t want to mark off areas as having no ticks just because we didn’t happen to find them at the moment of collecting or if any particular ticks had subtle behavior differences that made them less likely to get caught by the drag method.
While trapping may have some logistical difficulties, it is a promising addition to tick tracking and the researchers suggest that it be used in addition to dragging to give us more information and help us detect most accurately what ticks are in an area.
Article by Ellie Sanders, BCE
References
Spotted Lanternflies and Pollinators
Honeydew and Feeding-wound Exudate from Invasive Spotted Lanternfly (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) on Invasive Tree-of-Heaven (Sapindales: Simaroubaceae) Subsidize North American Pollinators, Parasitoids, and other Invertebrates
Invasive pests can bring about a whole host of problems to the non-native ecosystems they invade and the native critters living in there. Some of the issues brought about by invaders are easy to spot, like depleting the local food supply and other resources, starving out native populations. But some of the negative side effects may not be so obvious since they often come as the result of a cascading series of events. This is what we’re now learning about the invasive spotted lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula.
The spotted lanternfly is a phloem-feeding planthopper native to Asia that made its way into Berks County Pennsylvania in 2014. Since then, it’s spread to 18 different US states with projections that it will continue to spread across North America and abroad (looking at you Canada) in the coming years. The preferred host tree for this plant-feeding insect is the globally invasive Tree of Heaven, Ailanthus altissima. Though the spotted lanternfly will feed on a wide variety of other plants which adds to the success of this species.
Because the spotted lanternfly feeds on plants and doesn’t readily invade homes, it’s primarily considered to be an agricultural pest. But, like other plant-feeding insects, as the spotted lanternfly feeds on phloem, it excretes carbohydrate-rich honeydew which can serve as an important food source for many other insects including many structural pests. Anecdotal evidence and field observations have noted unusual insect activity surrounding trees infested with spotted lanternflies, suggesting that their presence may be attracting other honeydew-motivated insects. This wouldn’t be the first time the invasion of a honeydew-producing hemipterans has impacted plant-pest food webs as there are records of pollinators switching from natural nectar sources to hemipteran honeydew, and as a result, neglecting native plants.
To determine what effects the spotted lanternfly may be having on native food webs in the US, researchers at Temple University in Philadelphia set out to document arthropod visits to trees infested with the plant feeders. The researchers logged feeding observations at three different times across 43 sample sites over a five-month period. They also gathered supplemental data at study sites on air temperature, humidity, surrounding vegetation composition, and even spotted lanternfly biomass with the hope of identifying factors that may influence the relationship between the invasive pests and other insects.
In total, the researchers recorded 1,576 different feeding observations of various insects. The vast majority of those observations were Hymenoptera (the insect order for bees and wasps), consisting of 78 percent of the feeding visits logged. Thirty-three different species of wasps were observed, with most being native species. Though there were 4 introduced species recorded. Of the four introduced wasp species to visit sample sites, the European hornet Vespa crabo, was noted to be abundant and highly aggressive towards native pollinators. The next most frequent visitors were Diptera at 19.5%, followed distantly by Coleoptera at 0.76%.
The data from this study support the anecdotal observations that were noted in this paper, as well as personal conversations I’ve had with other pest management professionals, that infestations of the spotted lanternfly can attract a wide variety of other insects including many undesirable stinging insects that can quickly become dangerous pests around structures. While the spotted lanternfly will continue to be considered an agricultural pest, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to consider this invader as a conducive condition for Hymenoptera and should be on any PMP’s radar if you operate in states where the spotted lanternfly is known to exist.
Article by Mike Bentley, PhD, BCE
Stefani L Cannon, Matthew R Helmus, Honeydew and feeding-wound exudate from invasive spotted lanternfly (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) on invasive tree-of-heaven (Sapindales: Simaroubaceae) subsidize North American pollinators, parasitoids, and other invertebrates, Environmental Entomology, Volume 54, Issue 6, December 2025, Pages 1216–1230, https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvaf110
House Mouse Puzzles
Experienced Problem Solvers? The Ontogeny of Innovation in Wild House Mice
While we have answered the age-old question about what happens if we give a mouse a cookie, the question of what happens when we give a mouse a problem maybe still needs some answers. That’s essentially what researchers sought to discover with this study, by examining how problem solving abilities in the wild house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) may develop. In other words, are mice natural innovators, or are these skills something they develop over time?
Mice were first tested in semi-natural conditions, which mimics their environment out in the wild. Once the populations were established, the problems were added to the equation, and the mice were allowed to explore four different problems for a mealworm reward. The “problems” included a multi directional slider box, an inverted cup, a one-directional slider, and a Petri dish. Visits by mouse were recorded and analyzed. The researchers found that different generations visited the problems at different intensities with juveniles visiting them more often than the adults. But, the adults were the ones more likely to solve the problems. Also interestingly, majority of the mice visited the problems individually, meaning that they weren’t necessarily learning how to solve the problems by watching other individuals.
To get more to the bottom of these juveniles and their tendencies, the researchers then decided to test them in a more controlled setting. In this setting, the problems the mice encountered differed. Juveniles were required to open the windows of a Lego house for their reward. Juveniles began interacting with the problems starting at the average age of 18.7 days old, meaning that these mice began interacting with novel problems in their environments in a little over two weeks from being born.
Lastly, the researchers wanted to analyze whether being exposed to a solved problem would influence their future solving performance. These mice were tested with two of the problems used in this experiment- the Lego house, and the slider. In the first week, all mice were tested for problem solving with these two problems. Of those that did not solve the problems in the allotted time, the mice were then exposed to the same problems over the course of two weeks. The first week had completed solved set-ups, and the second week featured partially solved set ups. All of the mice were tested again the week following. Interestingly, both the adults and the juveniles who were classified as “non-solvers” did not improve with the exposure to the solved problems. However, those mice that had solved the problems in the original exposure were still very good at solving the problems even weeks later.
So what does all of this tell us about house mice in the context of pest management? The moral of the story is that it appears that mice are curious little individuals, and begin exploring their worlds at a very early age. And with that, it appears they have the innate ability to spontaneously problem solve, rather than a skill acquired through experiences. However, some mice appear to be better problem solvers than others, and seeing partially or completely solved problems doesn’t assist those to find the solution when tested later. When looking at this study through the lens of pest management, it provides more color for how mice may interact with the various devices we use in our day-to-day operations. Devices like traps are not much different to the problems that these mice were asked to solve in this study. If we are only capturing the “bad problem solvers”, we are effectively selecting for the more innovative mice that may be able to innately navigate the traps more easily and contributing to the behavioral resistance to our devices. In the end, it appears if you give a mouse a problem, they’ll likely be able to figure it out. And maybe even get a cookie out of the deal.
Article by Laura Rosenwald, BCE
References
Alexandros Vezyrakis, Valeria Mazza, Anja Guenther, Experienced problem solvers? The ontogeny of innovation in wild house mice, Animal Behaviour, Volume 232, 2026, 123441, ISSN 0003-3472, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2025.123441.
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